I’m not sure where to start, but I guess I’ll just say that Kallen and I have agreed to not have kids anytime soon. For Kallen, it meant not to start planning for kids until late next year. For me, its’ meaning has been changing and at this very moment, I’m debating if we really should have kids… ever.

I’m aware this topic if very black and white to others. Most may say having kids is a part of life, it’s a cycle, it’s tradition. Then there are those who have issues with conceiving. And there are those who choose to be child free.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why we have kids and what it means for our own future, and the future of those said children.

I can’t help but think having kids is a selfish thing in my opinion. Not to be confused with the actual act of parenting which I assume should be self-less. What I’d like to refer to are people talking about WANTING babies. Does anyone ever say that they NEED babies? So the fact that babies are something people want and not need, making it about themselves, doesn’t that seem selfish? And that’s what makes it difficult for me to justify.

Babies are super cute and I love my friend’s kids and can’t wait for the newborns to arrive. They say and do the most adorable things. Have Kallen and I imagined a future where we see our own little ones doing the same cute things, hell yes! The experience of parenting, nurturing, teaching, and watching a tiny human being grow up is special and I guess that may be the biggest reason why people want kids. You can’t experience that any other way. (Although having puppies may come close? no?)

But here’s the big BUT. Kids are not going to be kids forever. Meaning, they’re going to become teenagers, they’ll be influenced by their peers (bad and good), they’ll go through bouts of self-esteem issues, maybe be bullied, then they become adults, they’ll move out of our homes, they’ll go to college and rack up mounds of student debt, perhaps buy a home and rack up more debt, they’ll go through heart breaks many times over, and through it all they’ll also try to find themselves, debate between following their heads vs. hearts about their careers, and eventually want to find the meaning of life. We know this, because this is what we’ve gone through and maybe we are going through now. So the biggest question that I struggle with at this moment is whether I’m okay with bringing another human into this world because of a selfish reason such as wanting the experience of parenting, at the sake of this human experiencing all these negatives (and positives) of what we call living.

And did I forget to express my concerns for the current state of our mother earth? With the current rate of climate change, the next 30-40 years may be drastically different. Will earth still be hospitable. What will happen to the future of our little humans then?

This worries me and unfortunately it’s starting to overcome this desire that I previously had no question about. I don’t even know what to say to Kallen come late next year. What if at that point we want different things?

Who knows, maybe Kallen will think these two boys are all we really need:

Ever since I saw other close-up shots of rings, it’s been on my bucket list to do the same with mine! And thankful for Amazon, I purchased some really inexpensive (read $20) plastic tube lens extenders, snapped it onto my lens, and voila! Pure magic! I’m so in awe, I love it!